Jessica Pegula ousts No. 1 Iga Swiatek to make first Grand Slam semifinal

Pegula’s win means there are multiple American semifinalists in both the men’s and women’s singles for the first time at a Grand Slam since the 2003 U.S. Open.

5 min

By Ava Wallace

September 4, 2024 at 9:59 p.m. EDT

NEW YORK — In the six Grand Slam quarterfinals she had lost in her career, Jessica Pegula had twice faced No. 1 Iga Swiatek. Both were decisive matches the Polish star dictated nearly from start to finish, even while in their second meeting, two years ago in New York, Pegula forced a second-set tiebreaker. That’s generally how matches at Grand Slams go for Swiatek.

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But Pegula had no patience for a repeat performance Wednesday night on Arthur Ashe Stadium. Whether she was simply fed up with her 0-6 record in Grand Slam quarterfinals or she was riding the American wave washing over this U.S. Open, Pegula stalked onto the court like a woman on a mission and beat Swiatek, 6-2, 6-3, to advance to her first Grand Slam semifinal at age 30.

“I have been [to the quarterfinals] so many freakin’ times. I just kept losing,” Pegula said. “But to great players … everyone keeps asking me about it, but I was like, ‘I don’t know what to do. I just need to get there again and win the match. Thank God I was able to do it and finally — finally — I can say, ‘semifinalist.’”

With the win, the women’s semifinals are set: No. 6 seed Pegula will face the dangerous Czech Karolina Muchova and No. 13 seed Emma Navarro, another American and Pegula’s Olympic teammate earlier this summer, will play No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka on Thursday.

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Pegula and Navarro join Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe to make this tournament the first Grand Slam to feature multiple American semifinalists in both the men’s and women’s singles events since the 2003 U.S. Open. The Americans then were Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick, who won the men’s title, and Lindsay Davenport and Jennifer Capriati.

The Americans this time around are perhaps a tad more surprising. Navarro had never advanced past the first round at the U.S. Open before zipping her way into the final eight and Pegula had a 3-6 record against Swiatek, including an 0-2 mark in Grand Slams.

Those three wins proved valuable Wednesday. Swiatek struggled from the opening game, serving poorly and sending forehands long that she usually places perfectly. Pegula is well aware how quickly Swiatek can regroup and close any window of opportunity, so she attacked off the return to keep Swiatek on her heels.

The 23-year-old had only dropped her serve twice entering Wednesday match. She had not even faced a break point in her past three matches. Pegula broke her four times.

“To do it prime time, on Ashe, against the No. 1 player in the world — I knew I could do it, I just had to go out and execute my game, not get frustrated,” Pegula said.

It was Switaek who had trouble containing her frustration. For the world No. 1, Wednesday’s loss caps a disappointing summer after she won her fifth Grand Slam and fourth French Open title at Roland Garros in June. She was upset in the third round at Wimbledon before heading to the Paris Olympics, where she won a bronze medal but wiped away tears of disappointment after the match. She said losing the semifinal to Qinwen Zheng in the Summer Games was one of the hardest losses of her career — she cried for hours after, she said — thanks in part to the added stress of representing her country.

She has in recent weeks criticized the new, more intense tennis schedule this year, arguing that players have little time to rest. The WTA increased the number of mandatory tournaments for top players to 16 and expanded the number of two-week tournaments on the calendar as a part of the tour’s pathway to equal prize money it announced last year.

“There are people saying that, ‘oh, I don't have to play so many tournaments,’ but the fact is that we have so many mandatory tournaments that we literally need to show up, and we don't have time to work on stuff or [live] peacefully, because from one tournament we're going straight to another,” Swiatek said last week after her first-round win. “ … We don't even have time until the end of the year, because literally the first tournament starts on 29th of December. So yeah, the season is, for sure, too long.”

Pegula didn’t arrive in New York feeling the same strain as Swiatek. The Buffalo native, whose parents own the NFL’s Bills and NHL’s Sabres, was forced to skip the European clay-court swing because of a rib injury and didn’t hit a tennis ball for a month while she recovered.

She said earlier this week that having to spend so much time away from the court was daunting, initially — but it may have paid off as the Grand Slam season comes to a close. Pegula has won 14 of her past 15 matches. Wednesday’s quarterfinal may have been the sweetest one yet.

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Jessica Pegula ousts No. 1 Iga Swiatek to make first Grand Slam semifinal